Oneda Hoxha, Contributor
Featured image courtesy of Mays Hasan
Mays Hasan, a third-year international bachelors of business administration student, is not shy when it comes to travelling to new places and meeting new people. Hasan is currently on exchange in Barcelona and travelling and exploring the beautiful cities of Europe. But last May she went on a different kind of trip. Instead of staying in beautiful hotels, she stayed with a local community in Santa Marta, Colombia where she was on an outreach trip with Students Offering Support to build a classroom for the community.
“It was actually funny how I only got to meet my group at the airport,” says Hasan. “Of course, it forced me to step out of my comfort zone which was great as it taught me lots of interesting things about myself.”
Going on an outreach trip definitely helped me grow as a person and look at different things from a new perspective. We tend to forget how privileged we are here, but when you see how people in small communities in Latin America live and how their biggest dreams can be something we do on a daily basis, you start appreciating everything in life, she says.
This was the first time that Hasan had gone on an outreach trip. She found out about the trip from a presentation during York SOS’ MGMT 1050 midterm review session that she was attending.
The York SOS director explained that all the money that was being donated at the session was going to go towards building educational-based projects in Latin America, and that all students at York could apply to go see firsthand where this money was being spent.
SOS is a Canadian-registered charity that collects money through its student-run university chapters. York SOS is one of the top chapters and collects money by offering exam review sessions for students taking business and psychology classes for a donation of $20.
They have partners in communities across Latin America who submit project proposals for educational-based projects that are needed in the community. These projects include building classrooms, libraries, and training centres.
SOS and the university chapters then work together to see which projects should be assigned to which schools, depending on the number of volunteers available, as well as the amount of money that the school raises. Just last year alone, York SOS was able to raise about $29,000 which went towards building a library in Nicaragua and a garden wall for a school in Guatemala.
This year, York SOS’s project is a vocational training centre in Los Trozos, Honduras. Young people in the community do not have any educational options once they finish high school so the youth either leave the community to work or to obtain higher education.
Alternatively, they stay at home but can’t add value to the community. The training centre is being built to teach skills such as shoe making, sewing, and woodworking that can be used to find employment. The trip takes place from May 3 to May 17 for a cost of $1,950, which includes accommodations, food, insurance, flight, internal travel, an SOS and local guide, as well as the safety equipment you need to help with the physical construction of the training centre.
The trip had left a big impact on Hasan.
“Seeing the smiles on the faces of the people in the community and the hope they see through the whole SOS team just motivates me to always work hard, take risks, go on adventures, and volunteer whenever possible,” she says.
As soon as she returned from her trip, she contacted the York SOS team and was interviewed for the outreach director position. Mays now helps spread the word about her trip and works with the rest of the outreach team in helping students see why they too should go on a volunteer trip with York SOS.
“I strongly recommend anyone who has two weeks off during their summer to go on an outreach trip and get introduced to a new country, culture, language, food, and to see where the money that you donate actually goes,” she adds.
It’s a great opportunity to learn and meet new people from different parts of the world. You don’t want to miss out, says Hasan.
To sign up for this year’s York SOS outreach trip, or to register for an exam review session, visit www.yorksos.com and click “Volunteer Trips.” Outreach Trip applications are due by Monday, March 14th. If you have any questions, feel free to email at yorksos.outreach@gmail.com.
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